The Nigerian Communications Commission has linked the country’s damaged telecommunications infrastructure and facilities to the country’s subpar telecom services. This was stated at the Youth, Civil Society, and Stakeholders Summit 2022 in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, by NCC Vice Chairman Umar Danbatta. 50,000 instances of damage to telecom equipment and facilities have been documented nationwide over the previous five years, according to Danbatta, who also noted that these occurrences could have an impact on the caliber of telecom services in Nigeria.
He claimed that the rise in occurrences had continued to harm customers’ quality of experience and urged the public and security agencies to work together to reverse the trend.
Danbatta who was represented by the Head, Corporate Communication Unit, Nnena Ukoha said the negative impacts of ongoing vandalism of telecom equipment, evidenced in fiber cuts, theft of telecom facilities like generators at sites, and vandalism of base stations, among other vices, have become a major burden on the service providers. Telecom consumers have continued to suffer unjustified disruptions of their hard-earned services.
He added that the impact of infrastructure vandalism is felt by everybody in the quality of services supplied, as it leads to an increase in dropped calls, data, and internet connectivity issues, aborted and undelivered short message services, as well as numerous unsuccessful calls. Danbatta stated that it was important to take into account how important it was for people to be able to connect and communicate to better social and family networking, corporate operations, government services, and education.
He continued by saying that everyone in the community needs to get involved in safeguarding the vital infrastructure that allowed for these services to enjoy smooth connectivity.
“As a community, you are expected to report cases of vandalism of telecoms infrastructure to the nearest law enforcement agencies such as the police, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and also share adequate information received from the NCC with your family, friends, and neighbor,” he said.
